Phenomenologicality

“Who’s that lady on your head?”,

they asked the lady

with the lady on her head.

“That’s not a lady, that’s my hat,”

the queried lady said.

“I’m not a hat,” said the hat.

“Imagine that!,” said the lady

with the hat-not-a-hat.

“You are not a lady in a hat

nor is the lady on your head

a lady or a hat, but quite

another thing instead.

“You are a philosophical experiment

concerning structures of experience

and consciousness,” phenomenologists

convening in a chorus said,

“like Mr. Sacks, who is dead,

in his book you must have read

opining on the fellow who mistook 

his wife for his hat or his hat for his wife.”

“Go get a life,” spat the lady

in the hat who maybe

was a lady but who never

was a hat. “When you

come back, we’ll be

a wombat.” To which

the hat cried, “Oh!

I don’t think I’ll be that.”

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